How many furloughed workers will lose their jobs before 2021?

[DreamChaser23]

of the 9 million plus furloughed how many jobs do you think will be lost before 2021?

I think 4 million plus for sure and that is the bare minimum.

What do you think the government will do after October to support unemployed? Can you see Universal Credit payments to rise? Or do you think they will leave it at the same amount. As UC will not pay the bills for many workers who are redundant plus not everyone will find a job easily it could take years for some people to find work if another 4 million plus are redundant.

I think a large percentage will lose their jobs because of all of this.
Employers are reassessing their staffing during the furlough period. I know of companies in my area who have redundancies happening already. My company being one of those. I'm worried for my job.

I’m about to lose mine, despite being furloughed. Along with tens of thousands of my colleagues.

I'm furloughed and not hopeful.

They seem to have managed just fine without me!

On the other hand, lots of companies are taking staff on- obvious things like cleaning and supermarkets, but also jobs where people are working less efficiently from home, so more cover is needed.

I'm furloughed, hope my job is OK but I really don't know.

My other half has just been told ha redundant, along with half his department. Redundancies start when the company have to pay the NI and pension contributions of the furloughed.

The government will have to open other sectors of the economy, restaurants, bars, theatres, travel or there will be at least 4 million redundancies.

Furloughed and worried sick about my job

It won’t just be the furloughed that are at risk of redundancy either. I know people who have now been put at risk who weren’t on furlough. Equally I know furloughed staff who have now been unfurloughed and are now back at work.

Unfortunately the only people I know who have been made redundant are two people who worked throughout lockdown.

I dont have much hope of returning to my job. Oil and Gas Industry.

Universal credit has already risen by around £85 a month on the standard element, I can't see it rising significantly any more because they'd have to do the same for everyone, they couldn't differentiate between longer term unemployed and people recently made redundant.

On the other hand, lots of companies are taking staff on

^ I don't think that's the case given that job vacancies are already down over 28%. There will be huge numbers of people competing for few jobs.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53060529

"The furlough scheme continues to hold off the bulk of job losses, but unemployment is likely to surge in the months ahead."

www.ft.com/content/5483d718-8edf-4a25-94d5-4379c822c704

“When this happens the country will be highly vulnerable to unemployment rising to five million people or 15 per cent of the workforce. These would be levels not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s — a harrowing thought.”

Cheery! There might be cleaning, warehouse & lower level health care work.

I reckon about half. I've been on furlough since lockdown began and there is still not enough work for me to go back. I'm 50/50 about whether my job will survive.

Our place has been struggling for sometime and obviously annual losses have increased. The staff who are in haven't got enough to do, so we're thinking they'll reduce staff to the bare minimum. We have approx 30% on furlough due to shielding/vulnerable. The bosses know those who are in can work through another wave, but there's no guarantees who they'll choose. Three who aren't in have either been there years or exceptional workers.

This may be a stupid question (I am prone to asking them!) but why does furlough automatically mean you’re at a higher risk than your non-furloughed colleagues of losing your job?
Our firm have furloughed some, and not others. Fortunately, I haven’t been furloughed but the ones that have are interesting choices. Management level with their direct reports still working, for example.
Do we think some firms are picking staff for furlough that are candidates for redundancy??

Obviously, this isn’t the case in every sector. A good friend of mine is returning to work on Monday after being furloughed since the beginning but she works in the hospitality industry...

It won’t always be the case but I would say if they are managing without you, why would they want you back?

Okay...you have to be clear about how redundancy works.

If ten of you do the exact same role, and they decide to make 50% of you redundant all ten people will be put at risk of redundancy irrespective of whether they were furloughed or not.

Then they would choose the 5 to be made redundant based on:

• Previous performance scores, sickness absences, any disciplinaries, etc

and/or

• Interviews.

They can't just choose the people furloughed. That would be illegal.

The question comes to - how did they choose who to furlough? If they kept those with the best prior performance working then it would stand to reason that the furloughed would be more at risk. If that wasn't how they chose those to be furloughed and just pulled names out of a hat or whatever then they aren't.

I have a very bad feeling about unemployment rises.
Both DH and I run businesses and we’re fighting making anyone redundant as best we can but man, it’s tough.

It's obviously not just the industries that have had to shut down either.. The higher education sector has a forecast deficit of billions for the next academic year. Each institution is having to make millions of pounds in savings. Mine is trying hard to avoid widespread redundancies through other measures but others won't be able to.

I work for a family business ran by my IL's. Before the furlough scheme came in to effect, directors were already discussing redundancies. WFH meant there was an audit trail where management could see exactly who was doing what and when.

I've argued for months that the people I worked with in the office were doing absolutely nothing. The workload was small as it was, but some of them had been employed for nearly 30 years so there was a lot of loyalty there. While they've been furloughed, my MIL has been doing the work of three people that she's employed and it's taken 15 hours a week maximum - mainly ad hoc essential invoicing.

Now it's been seen, when the furlough period ends and the business starts running at full capacity again people will either be offered redundancy or returning part time. We just can't justify employing people full time for working an hour or two a day.

On the flip side, I know of at least 5 people who have returned to work from furlough and everything is running smoothly.

This may be a stupid question (I am prone to asking them!) but why does furlough automatically mean you’re at a higher risk than your non-furloughed colleagues of losing your job? Not your situation, as you are comparing with non-furloughed colleagues in the same company, but furlough is supposed to be used where staff would otherwise be made redundant, so a company which has furloughed staff is more likely to make staff redundant than one which hasn't. Therefore, overall, furloughed staff (and even their non-furloughed staff in the same company) are more at risk of redundancy than staff in a company that hasn't had to furlough anyone.

@Alex50

It won’t always be the case but I would say if they are managing without you, why would they want you back?

They will still have to go through a fair selection process, but there are ways and means of choosing who you want to go and it still looking fair.